Flight Control HD: Top Quality Arcadia

It’s not all too often that we get to review some amazing iOS applications years after they come out. Today we will be taking a look at Flight Control HD, which is by no means a new game, but it is most definitely one of the best to ever reach iOS. Even two and a half years after it was first released, it manages to top the iTunes charts. Learn what makes Flight Control HD a chart-topper after the break.

30 Minutes To Landing

In Flight Control HD, you will be working as a flight line marshaller to help land aircraft. You will be working in places across the globe, from the Australian outback to ski slopes and even into outer space. The goal is to land as many aircraft as possible — the more you land, the more points you earn.

Use your finger to trace a line from the plane to its respective runway.

The point of the game is to land aircraft safely. To do so, you trace a line from the aircraft as it comes onto the screen to its respective runway (i.e. red planes go to the red runway, helicopters go to helipads, etc.). A red exclamation point will appear on the edges of the screen when a plane is coming onto the screen. The challenge comes in once more aircraft start flooding the screen, as you have to draw paths that keep the aircraft from crashing into each other.

The initial path you draw out for the aircraft is not final. You are able to change the route of the aircraft to help avoid crashes.

A Smooth Landing

Flight Control HD is perfect for the iPad. The iPad’s 9.7-inch screen makes for the perfect canvas for such a game, as it offers adequate space for the planes to fly and for runways to be spread apart from each other. Because of this, a difficult gameplay environment is created.

Be careful — you need to time out the planes routes so they don’t crash into each other on the runway.

Each of the 10 levels in Flight Control HD provide their own little twists to the game. Some levels have runways that close and reopen periodically, some spawn planes with prewritten courses and others have obstacles that fly onto the screen and either knock your aircraft off course or end the game.

To add to the challenge, there are tons of different aircraft which behave differently. More often than not, you’ll find that two or more different types of aircraft share a runway. The problem? One type of aircraft travels much faster than the other. In order to accommodate the speed difference and avoid crashes, you have to adjust your planes’ courses accordingly.

Simplicity is one of the things that makes Flight Control HD so great. The controls are easy to learn, and since the gist of the game never really changes, it allows you to focus on building up your score. It also is a challenging game especially as you get further into it. Those two factors combined make it addicting and something that you would want to return to time after time.

First Class Benefits

Flight Control HD has quite a bit of bonus content — some of which is exclusive to the iPad version of the game. In addition to the five airports that come with the iPhone version of the game, there are five HD levels that are reserved for the iPad version of the game — including the space level and one 3D level.

Flight Control HD’s moon-themed level proves that this game is truly out of this world.

There is also a very strong multiplayer mode implemented into the game. You can play locally with the splitscreen mode; you can also play locally on two different devices via WiFi or Bluetooth connection. Of course, there is an online multiplayer mode that uses Game Center to find you a match.

The Graphics

I absolutely love the graphics in Flight Control HD. It features cartoon-style artwork that is crisp and always looks great in iOS. It’s the type of artwork that looks stunning on both Retina and non-Retina devices. The amazing use of color makes the game brighter and fun to play. Textures are also implemented rather well in the game.

Bright colors as well as detailed, cartoon-style artwork make the graphics in this game look brilliant.

The Verdict

All in all, Flight Control HD is by far one of the best games to grace the iPad. Since the controls take very little time to learn, you can automatically hop into the fun, addictive gameplay this game has to offer. As each of the levels brings its own special thing to the table, you also don’t have to worry about gameplay growing stale over time. Last, the graphics are amazing, which always adds value to the game.

The fact that Flight Control HD is still one of my favorite games years after it was first released shows how great the game truly is. It is truly worth it at its normal tag price of $4.99; however, if you aren’t willing to shell out that much for a game, it does go on sale rather often around the holidays. Regardless, Flight Control HD is undoubtedly a game that every iPad owner should have on their device.